Roadford Weekender Recce

A couple of weeks ago Steve, Jody and myself headed down to Roadford Lake for a recce and to meet with Phil Timings and his team from South West Lakes.

We had such a good day out and are so excited about the Roadford Weekender and its scope for development over the coming years.

Our passion is to create events that not just the athlete, but friends and family too will want to come and be a part of, whether that’s participating in the event, soaking up the atmosphere back at the campsite, taking a walk in the stunning surroundings or doing some local sightseeing. we really feel that we can achieve that down at Roadford.

The schedule at the moment (we’re finalising all the details at the moment) is for everyone to arrive on the Friday afternoon if they can – there’s going to be weekend camping so it’d be a shame to miss out even if you are only thinking about the cycle or run elements. Of course, if you want to just come for the day, that’s fine too.

So, arrival on Friday and in the evening there’ll be multi distance lake swims. Roadford Lake is usually a complete no-go when it comes to swimming, so we’re really honoured to have permission to swim in the lake on this day.

In the evenings (both Friday and Saturday nights) the Lakeside Café will be serving hot meals, and we have use of one of their reception rooms to eat and make new friends. And of course, there’s a bar too…

We’ll have caterers at the campsite so you’ll be able to get a hot drink and bacon butty in you early doors without having to bring a carload of food…

Saturday will be dedicated to Cycle Sportives and there will be varying distances to suit all the family. We took a drive around the long route during our meeting and I have to say it is absolutely beautiful. Challenging yes, but very beautiful.

We have routes starting from 15 miles through to the full distance 112 mile route. I think we only passed 2 cars during the time we were there!

Again, food will be served in the café if you don’t feel like getting the Primus going, and on Sunday we’ll have the running events, from family fun runs through to the full marathon. The routes take in the excellent woodland paths around the lake as well as the very rural roads.

All the elements start and finish in the main car park at Roadford.

Phil and his team are also getting stuck into planning and are going to be putting on lots of taster sessions of water-based activities for those members of the family who might not be burning around the countryside on their bikes or running around the lake over the weekend.